Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Leverage - Recap & Review - The Twelve-Step Job

LeverageThe Twelve-Step Job

Original Air Date: Feb 3, 2009

Brittany W – TwoCents Reviewerbrittanyw@twocentscorp.com

An important rule, kids: don’t eat and drive, unlike the bozo in the opening minute here. He deserves to be hit by a car, then he gets to work and finds out the government is raiding his office, so he runs off like a wuss.

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An important rule, kids: don’t eat and drive, unlike the bozo in the opening minute here. He deserves to be hit by a car, then he gets to work and finds out the government is raiding his office, so he runs off like a wuss.

Cut to Nate and Sophie interviewing a poor woman working for a food bank who’s just found out that all their charitable donations have been embezzled – no doubt, by that idiot who’s just run off. She asks Nate why he does what he does, and he provides a typically vague answer before looking for a drink, which he never gets because Sophie calls him out on it.

Cue Hardison’s Briefing of the Week. Alec informs them that he can’t find any traces of what this Jack Hurley did with the money, and they deduce he probably liquidated it and is on the run – as backed up by the fact he’s got more charges to bars, strip clubs and taco stands than any human should have. Nate deduces Hurley is an addict under stress and therefore predictable (gee, I wonder where he figured that out?). Hardison tries to make change for the strip clubs before an unamused Nate kicks him and Eliot out the door.

At said strip club, Eliot has an attack of Male PMS when he discovers Hardison has spilled slushie in his expensive car before they spot their guy – and their guy being harangued by what appears to be some sort of Asian mafia. Of course, this is rife for another installment of ‘Eliot Spencer owns everyone without really trying,’ which only lets Hurley get away. Hardison thinks he’s become awesome when he finds a gun, only to prove he can’t fire it. They get lucky when Hurley crashes his car around the corner thanks to being drunk or asleep at the wheel. This conveniently provides an excuse to dump his drunk butt into rehab – along with Nate. No, I didn’t see this coming. Of course not.

In the rehab clinic, Sophie poses as a newly arriving doctor to keep an eye on their con. She meets the usual colorful cast of characters, including an angry delinquent, some guy that really looks like Gary Busey – and hey, it’s Parker! And Nate! And our con guy admits he drinks, smokes, likes Internet porn, and compulsively does everything…which he blames on the CIA. Fun times. Sophie uses this opportunity to not-so-subtly needle Nate about his own real drinking problem, and Nate is not a happy camper.

Parker, meanwhile, sneaks around to poke into Hurley’s personal effects, looking for the receipt where he left his actual car. She recovers it just before the doctor wants to give her antidepressants for her fake kleptomania.

On the outside, Hardison and Eliot find the car with the information Parker gives them. It’s obvious the car’s been tampered with: there’s a big old bomb underneath it and Alec is going to go boom in two minutes. Hardison promptly flips out, but then reasons a bomb is basically a computer, and he knows computers. They defuse the bomb, only to be greeted by more random Asian mafia guys…and some Hispanic mafia guys. Whatever nationality they all are, they’re pretty scared of Eliot holding the bomb, and decide to run away.

Back in the clinic, Nate is having a miserable morning since Sophie just woke him up and not to mention he hasn’t had a drink in two days. Hardison and Eliot turn up, and Eliot is not enthused that Hardison has to pretend to be his gay boyfriend to get into the clinic. They tell Nate, Sophie and Parker what they know. Unfortunately, Nate’s normally genius brain is baked. It doesn’t help that Sophie wants to needle him more. Nate decides he’ll go jump the wall at the clinic when Sophie’s not there and fails miserably. Good to see not every hero is athletic and infallible, isn’t it? In fact, Nate is having male PMS because he can’t do anything but sit in the clinic. (He also reveals his father and his grandfather were both addicts, which Sophie pounces on. Is it me or is she really beating him – and the audience – over the head with rhetoric in the last few episodes?)

And hey, it’s Sterling! Crap. Claiming he’s there on behalf of IYS, worried about Nate. Actually, as it turns out, he’s a hallucination of Nate’s. Nate needs better hallucinations. This is where Nate snaps and roughs up Hurley demanding where the money is. Hurley gets scared to death and confesses he screwed up the food bank account, just as the random mafia guys turn up at the clinic. Parker ‘accidentally’ steals the gun off one of them, Nate uses it to shoot a window lock, and everyone runs like hell.

Nate gets Hurley to tell them where the money is by taking him out for tacos, which miffs Hardison the drama queen. Nate and Hurley need to go back to the car. This only means all the random mafia guys are there waiting. Oops, there’s another bomb under the car. This one, unfortunately, goes boom complete with rolling, flaming tire. Turns out, it’s the old bomb we saw earlier, which Hardison rigged up again…and they very adroitly pulled the big lug out of the car before it went boom. The money’s hiding in the tires, it goes back to the right people, and Nate sets the big guy up with a new identity for doing the right thing in the end. Meanwhile, Parker is still in rehab, playing Pictionary with the addicts…

What’s your take on this con? Are you as excited as I am that there will be a season two of Leverage? Let me hear it below!